This paper investigates whether buy-and-build strategies (B&B) can explain cross-sectional variation in holding periods. I model the B&B effect in a survival-analysis framework and present results from several treatment-effect estimators. I find that B&B strategies increase holding periods by up...

This paper investigates whether private equity (PE)-backed acquirers have a “parenting advantage” in the mergers & acquisitions (M&A) market. We employ a sample of 788 PE-backed firms and a carefully matched control group of 6,652 non-PE backed peers, for which we observe the entire...

This paper explores how diversity among lead partner teams (LPTs) of private equity (PE) funds affects buyout performance. We argue that there is a trade-off between the “bright side” of diversity, i.e., improved decision-making due to a broader set of perspectives, and the “dark side”,...

Using a sample of 18,225 global buyouts, we find that management buyouts (MBOs) are significantly more likely to occur if economic policy uncertainty (EPU) increases. This finding is consistent with the idea that EPU provides an opportunity for insiders to capitalize on private information and...

Using a hand-collected sample of global office locations of private equity (PE) firms, we show that portfolio companies backed by local offices outperform cross-border buyouts in terms of operational improvements. The effect strengthens with higher cross-country cultural distance or information...